A comparison between IE and Firefox

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Guest

The popularity of Internet Explorer has been steadily dropping in the past
few months from 96% in July this year to 93% now. Meanwhile, the new Firefox
browser is becoming more and more popular, with more than 7 million users
already. What is there to Firefox that makes it this popular? Time for a good
comparison. I have used both browsers, so I am talking from experience

First of all, both of the browsers are free to download (find Firefox at
http://getfirefox.com). Additionally, both browsers are very user-friendly
and easy to use. The help files of both browsers are good, but you will
rarely (if at all) need them - everything is very straightforward.

If you install Firefox, all your favorites, settings, cache, plugins and
history from Internet Explorer will automatically be transferred. I don't
believe that Internet Explorer automatically imports all those data from
Firefox, but I'm not sure.

Both browsers are reasonably secure. However, because Internet Explorer is
so widely used, many crackers write their software specifically for Internet
Explorer. Therefore, Internet Explorer users will find that they get more
unwanted adware and spyware. Additionally, I have never got an unwanted
"handy search bar" or such a thing on Firefox, in contrast to Internet
Explorer.

Firefox automatically blocks all popups. If you do want to see a popup (I
never needed this), it's one mouse click to show it - easy. Internet Explorer
is the only one of the major browsers (IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari) that
doesn't have this.

Like most other popular browsers Firefox has the very handy concept of
tabbed browsing. This means, that instead of opening links in new windows,
you can open them in new "tabs". A tab is something that you also often see
in the top of dialogs. With this feature, your taskbar will not be full of
Internet Explorer windows for once. Again, Internet Explorer is the only of
the major browsers that doesn't have this.

On the Firefox site, you can find a large archive of extensions for all
kinds of handy purposes: http://update.mozilla.org/extensions/. For example,
I have an extension to minimize to the system tray, and to be able to . There
are undoubtly lots of extensions available for Internet Explorer too, but I
found them a bit harder to find. Also, because Firefox is open-source, it is
easier to write add-ons for it. And that means that there are more add-ons
available.


In conclusion, Firefox easily wins this comparison. It is easy to use and
install, also for people that do not have a very great knowledge of
computers. If you are interested in switching to Firefox, or also if you just
want to try it, you can find it at http://getfirefox.com. If you are want
some tips on how to use Firefox, you can go to
http://mozilla.org/products/firefox/switch.html.
 
Don't forget that Internet Explorer doesn't read HTML correctly, wich Firefox
does.
And Firefox can handle transparent PNG-files, wich again, Internet Explorer
can't.
And for me this is an important matter since my website use transparent PNG:s.
 
I've had issues with Firefox not reading CSS correctly, but IE does. I tried
to find explanations in FF forums and to no avail. Personally, I like the FF
tabs. They rock! But if it cannot read CSS correctly and support is limited,
it's not ready for the big leagues.
 
shank said:
I've had issues with Firefox not reading CSS correctly, but IE does. I
tried to find explanations in FF forums and to no avail. Personally, I
like the FF tabs. They rock! But if it cannot read CSS correctly and
support is limited, it's not ready for the big leagues.
Click to expand...

Firefox uses Mozilla's Gecko engine, which generally complies with the
standards much better than IE. If you have CSS that works with IE, but not
with Firefox, there is a very good chance that your CSS is faulty and only
works the way you expect with IE because of a defect in IE: and there's also
a very good chance that you can fix your code to work with both.
 
It's been about a month, but if I recall correctly, it was something simple
like centering a table. I was using text-align:center and also
margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto. The table was centered in IE and NS,
but left-aligned in FF. I couldn't get a response in the FF forums. Maybe I
should go back and try again.
 
shank said:
It's been about a month, but if I recall correctly, it was something
simple like centering a table. I was using text-align:center and also
margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto. The table was centered in IE and NS,
but left-aligned in FF. I couldn't get a response in the FF forums. Maybe
I should go back and try again.
Click to expand...

Yes, centering is definitely something that IE does not handle correctly,
and using both text-align and auto margins is the workaround. There must
have been something a bit off with your CSS if it did not work.

For help try comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets
 
Gijs van Swaaij said:
Both browsers are reasonably secure. However, because Internet Explorer is
so widely used, many crackers write their software specifically for Internet
Explorer. Therefore, Internet Explorer users will find that they get more
unwanted adware and spyware. Additionally, I have never got an unwanted
"handy search bar" or such a thing on Firefox, in contrast to Internet
Explorer.
Click to expand...

I would say Firefox is more secure than IE. It's coded better and isn't
integrated deep into the OS.

Hackers/crackers target IE because it's an easy target - not because it is
popular. If the holes are there then they will take the chance. They hack for
fame and IE allows an easy way for them to do it. Popularity/userbase numbers
means nothing. Just look at Apache for example.

I don't hate MS but I hate IE. The one thing I think MS needs to improve on
is how fast they deploy patches and their attitude to person(s)/companies
that report such holes in the browser. The need to swallow their pride and
simply fix and say thank you!
 
Both Firefox and IE can read valid CSS without any problems. The problems
arise only when you have errors in your CSS. IE tolerates some errors that
Firefox does not tolerate. And the other way around, Firefox tolerates some
errors that IE does not tolerate. If you want to see what is wrong in your
CSS, you can check it at http://validator.w3c.org/. That is a service by the
guys that are responsible for creating the standards.

By the way, you are not the only one that has faulty code, 95% of all sites
(especially, surprisingly, larger sites) have non-valid HTML. Most of the
time this doesn't cause any problems, but sometimes, if a web designer
doesn't properly test his site on more than one browser, it can give problems.
 
IE doesn't display all valid CSS right! For example, with firefox you
can create a dropdown-menu with CSS, check your code with the CSS
validator after that, 0 errors... But it doesn't display in IE.

Gijs van Swaaij schreef:
 
Gijs van Swaaij said:
Both Firefox and IE can read valid CSS without any problems. The problems
arise only when you have errors in your CSS. IE tolerates some errors that
Firefox does not tolerate ...
Click to expand...

IE does more than tolerate more errors. It also implements a lot of things
incorrectly. Many of these things would likely have been fixed by now if
Microsoft had not left IE to stagnate whilst the other browsers were
continuing to improve.
 
=?Utf-8?B?R2lqcyB2YW4gU3dhYWlq?= <Gijs van
(e-mail address removed)> wrote in
The popularity of Internet Explorer has been steadily dropping in the
past few months from 96% in July this year to 93% now. Meanwhile, the
new Firefox browser is becoming more and more popular, with more than 7
million users already. What is there to Firefox that makes it this
popular? Time for a good comparison. I have used both browsers, so I am
talking from experience

First of all, both of the browsers are free to download (find Firefox at
http://getfirefox.com). Additionally, both browsers are very
user-friendly and easy to use. The help files of both browsers are good,
but you will rarely (if at all) need them - everything is very
straightforward.

If you install Firefox, all your favorites, settings, cache, plugins and
history from Internet Explorer will automatically be transferred. I
don't believe that Internet Explorer automatically imports all those
data from Firefox, but I'm not sure.

Both browsers are reasonably secure. However, because Internet Explorer
is so widely used, many crackers write their software specifically for
Internet Explorer. Therefore, Internet Explorer users will find that
they get more unwanted adware and spyware. Additionally, I have never
got an unwanted "handy search bar" or such a thing on Firefox, in
contrast to Internet Explorer.

Firefox automatically blocks all popups. If you do want to see a popup
(I never needed this), it's one mouse click to show it - easy. Internet
Explorer is the only one of the major browsers (IE, Firefox, Opera,
Safari) that doesn't have this.

Like most other popular browsers Firefox has the very handy concept of
tabbed browsing. This means, that instead of opening links in new
windows, you can open them in new "tabs". A tab is something that you
also often see in the top of dialogs. With this feature, your taskbar
will not be full of Internet Explorer windows for once. Again, Internet
Explorer is the only of the major browsers that doesn't have this.

On the Firefox site, you can find a large archive of extensions for all
kinds of handy purposes: http://update.mozilla.org/extensions/. For
example, I have an extension to minimize to the system tray, and to be
able to . There are undoubtly lots of extensions available for Internet
Explorer too, but I found them a bit harder to find. Also, because
Firefox is open-source, it is easier to write add-ons for it. And that
means that there are more add-ons available.


In conclusion, Firefox easily wins this comparison. It is easy to use
and install, also for people that do not have a very great knowledge of
computers. If you are interested in switching to Firefox, or also if you
just want to try it, you can find it at http://getfirefox.com. If you
are want some tips on how to use Firefox, you can go to
http://mozilla.org/products/firefox/switch.html.
Click to expand...

If like me you'd like to change but found to many compatibility problems
with Firefox you may wish to look at other options such as Avant or Maxthon.
These are simply free shells for IE that give you the benefits of Firefox
without the issues. I've been very happy with Avant.
 
But then you're using the same IE engine yet and that's exactly the main
problem of IE!

Fuzzy Logic schreef:
 
But then you're using the same IE engine yet and that's exactly the main
problem of IE!
Click to expand...

And what problem would that be? I have IE seriously locked down and have
never had a security incident or gotten any spyware.
 
The problem that they render nor xhtml nor css correctly!!!

Fuzzy Logic schreef:
 
And let us not forget that Firefox also runs on other operating systems, not
just Windows and Mac. I know that this means nothing to you Windows folks,
as I was once like you, but there is a big chunk of people out there using
Linux, Solaris and Unix aswell as others o/s's.
 
Actually, IE mis-interprets and incorrectly renders the box model. It also
doesn't support standards-complient code like min-height/max-height.
 
We have to admit it: Internet Explorer is the master gate for spyware,
crapware, viruses, etc
Click to expand...

No we don't. If you actually took the time to learn the security features in IE (and used them) you can make IE
VERY secure. I've locked down IE properly and have NEVER even had a malicious cookie.

I will admit the default security settings for IE are not ideal.
 
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